


Imitating Life

by Davechicken



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Depiction of torture, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 04:39:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1001006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney McKay contemplates what it is to be the hero of the 'piece'. Heavy spoilers for The Defiant One, The Eye and The Storm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imitating Life

_Empire Strikes Back_ had always been such a good film. Not the best film, ever, to be sure, but certainly one of the best of the well known ones. Back before Lucas sold out. Back before the animated monstrosity that was Jar-Jar Binks. Back even before the Ewoks.

Rodney hated watching it now.

When he was younger, he’d worshipped at the temple of Lucas for his strange new world - something different from the rest of the sci-fi out there. Something… good for the cinema. It had its flaws, the same as everything else did, but he’d magnanimously let most of them slide.

But now… everything grated. Cold, cold climate with the march of towering machines and he shivered, remembering the rain. The way it could cover you, fall over you, sink into your very bones. His fingers hadn’t worked all that well, and it had been a struggle to manipulate the damaged station.

The Wraith coming for them, in ships so big he couldn’t begin to contemplate them, and on-screen the ATATs paled into paralytic, mechanical insects in comparison. 

He wanted to laugh when Yoda gave his little speeches. Wanted to curse all non-corporeal holier-than-thou bastards with their loose morals and aloof selfishness. Always the way with so-called higher powers. Everyone venerated them, but mostly failed to see how they were just as flawed as everybody else.

Just like the Ancients. Screw up the galaxy, pack up bags, ascend to a higher plane or simply find somewhere else to play gods. 

He had always wanted to be Palpatine as a kid. While everybody else wanted to be Luke (and really, he could never see why) or Solo (who was, at least, more acceptable) Rodney had dreamed of immense power at his fingertips, and the freedom to wield it. 

Vast hordes of people to do as he wanted, whole planets trembling in fear under the threat of destruction, an entire galaxy under his sway.

It left a bitter aftertaste in the mouth now. Now that he had seen the Goa’uld and their egotistical, asinine god-complexes. He’d joked about Anubis’ theatricality, the complete self-absorption and lack of proportion. Doom had been on the doorstep yet again, but he hadn’t had any respect for the snake. It had all seemed somewhat ridiculous. Impossible…. Childish.

All that power. All that potential. All the things Anubis could have done. It was too much to get his head around in any real sense, the panic at one remove. Major Carter would save the day again and the Big Bad Wolf would slink back, tail between its legs. The melodrama was just too great.

Here, though, it was worse. The Wraith would swagger around, like some horrible cross between a T-1000 and the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast from Traal. They would strut, they would preen. And then they would eat.

Just like that.

No ego-stroking. No long, drawn-out gloating. No need to be reminded of the Evil Overlord list. Just. Eating.

He could hear Gaul’s wracked breathing when he turned in to sleep at nights. Mornings. Afternoons. The daylight didn’t help to keep it back. 

Even as a child, no Hollywood monster had ever made him feel like he had then. No amount of on-screen death could really capture the feeling. Tasha Yar. Tara. Hell, even Queequeg. He hadn’t cried about them. They were only fictional characters, even if he had become involved. 

He remembered some deep sense of the injustice and flimsiness of the universe, some little chink makeup in the world. Anger and frustration.

That wasn’t how it felt now.

He’d watched as people - his team - his friends - died screaming before his eyes, helpless to stop it. People he had lived and worked with for months, and his first thought had been for himself. No clichéd life flashing before his eyes, but the horrible, gut-wrenching realisation that he hadn’t, actually, got all that much to show for himself.

That this was it, when it boiled down to it, and if he died right now - what was the point? It was an ultimately selfish response. One he wasn’t the slightest bit proud of. 

Whatever kick or tingle he’d got from watching these fictional lives seemed to pale into insignificance now. His life had been so… dull. One long escape from one group of people and the next. Parents. Classmates. Colleagues. Work that separated him from the world, reassured him of his difference, his excellence. Then a larger-than-life world when he got home to make up for the deficiencies of his own. 

The odd, guilty, visceral little thrill he’d had watching the heroes beaten; Indiana drugged, Spock in deadly paroxysms of laughter, Solo face down and helpless. He’d almost longed for it, actually. Willed the villain to catch them, torment them, see how much they could do before they broke.

It wasn’t real, of course. So it didn’t matter if he enjoyed watching them suffer. It was one of those life-affirming things. Reminding you you could feel. Catharsis. A safe outlet. Somewhere no one would know if your dirty little secrets were less than suitable for the general populace.

Nothing like reality.

Watching the Corellian smuggler jump and start, screaming from some invisible agony… He’d somehow once thought it was the most impressive form of torture imaginable.

It paled into comparison with something as simple as a knife. Something he habitually carried with him, as a matter of practicality. Something the military presence seemed never to be without. Something he ate with.

It wasn’t even especially advanced, which was possibly the most unsettling thing of all. Several inches of cold, sharp metal just like the several inches of cold, sharp metal man had been making since he first learned to bash and smelt things the right way. 

The way it had dragged and caught. Not a clean, clinical incision like he imagined Carson would execute, in times of need. Not the slash and run, the over-the-top stabbing from any number of bad teenage movies. The horrible dragging when it cut through the fabric of his jacket, fraying the thick canvas. A quiet, innocuous noise as it bit into flesh, sliding back and forth through his arm as though he were a Sunday roast. Back and forth, back and forth tearing at the flesh and muscle and he could hear the words spilling past his lips; the sobs, the curses, the begging. He’d spurted out his plans to save the city from destruction in an effort to make him stop, oh god please stop. 

His face still burned hot with shame every time he remembered. It was never supposed to go like this. It was always the hero who was captured and tortured, who survived untold misery and hardship and always, always came out on top. It was supposed to be the Major Sheppards of this world, who flew down the maw of the dragon on the seat of their pants, who fought to the bitter end, who never backed down. 

Not the selfish cowards. Not the Rodney McKays. 

“I thought you didn’t like _Back to the Future_ , Rodney?”

“Far be it for me to deprive you of your inane entertainment, Major.”

The hero shrugged, put the DVD in to play and returned to sprawl in his favourite place.

Rodney didn’t even complain about the Delorean.


End file.
